Thurs­day, Sec­re­tary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that the Pen­ta­gon would lift a for­mal ban on women in com­bat roles in the US Military.

It’s likely this is the last major act by Sec­re­tary Panetta, who is step­ping down. Even if it’s not his last act, there is no doubt this is the act with the great­est import he has taken in his abbre­vi­ated stint as the head of the Defense Department.

Coun­tries cur­rently allow­ing women in com­bat (map) are mostly in Europe: Den­mark, Esto­nia, Fin­land, France, Ger­many, Lithua­nia, Nether­lands, Nor­way, Poland, Roma­nia, and Swe­den; and in pros­per­ous English-​​speaking coun­tries: Aus­tralia, Canada and New Zealand. In addi­tion, one des­per­ate coun­try (Israel) and two des­per­ately poor coun­tries (Eritrea and North Korea) allow women in combat.

Women are pilot­ing US fighter air­craft already. Other nations that allow women fighter pilots are Pak­istan, Ser­bia, South Africa, South Korea and the United King­dom of Great Britain and North­ern Ire­land (or, as I pre­fer to call it, UKoG­BaNI, “you-​​kay-​​oh-​​guh-​​ban-​​nee”).

Women already serve in com­bat roles in the US mil­i­tary, but through a num­ber of (draft?) dodges, the mil­i­tary estab­lish­ment has main­tained the fic­tion that they do not. For exam­ple, there’s this anec­dote reported by CNN​.com from the Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen­eral Mar­tin Dempsey:

As he pre­pared for a trip out­side his head­quar­ters, he took a moment to intro­duce him­self to the crew of his Humvee.

“I slapped the tur­ret gun­ner on the leg and I said, ‘Who are you?’ And she leaned down and said, I’m Amanda.’ And I said, ‘Ah, OK,’ ” Dempsey told reporters at the Pentagon.

“So, female turret-​​gunner pro­tect­ing divi­sion com­man­der. It’s from that point on that I real­ized some­thing had changed, and it was time to do some­thing about it.”

At this writ­ing, 67 of the nearly 3,500 Amer­i­cans killed by hos­tile fire in Iraq and 33 of the more than 1,700 killed in com­bat in Afghanistan have been women. About 1,000 of the 50,000-plus US wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan are women.

It’s not clear what phys­i­cal stan­dards will be set for many of the spe­cial­ized élite com­bat roles — such as Navy SEALS and Army Rangers — but while gen­der will not be a cri­te­rion, most every­one agrees that the phys­i­cal stan­dards will exclude all but the most excep­tional of women.

If mem­bers of our mil­i­tary can meet the qual­i­fi­ca­tions for a job — and let me be clear, I’m not talk­ing about reduc­ing the qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the job — if they can meet the qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the job, then they should have the right to serve, regard­less of creed or color or gen­der or sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion. — Sec­re­tary of Defense Leon Panetta

In one of those coin­ci­dences of his­tory, Panetta’s announce­ment came just two days after the 40^th anniver­sary of Roe v. Wade, the land­mark Supreme Court deci­sion writ­ten by Jus­tice Harry Black­mun (who was appointed by the rav­ing lib­eral, Pres­i­dent Dwight David Eisenhower).

The con­ver­gence of two lines of thought, one for each of these events, got me to reflect­ing on my childhood.

Norma McCor­vey was a high school dropout, a drug user, and preg­nant in 1969. (McCor­vey has since spo­ken out against both abor­tion and Pres­i­dent Obama.)

Two years later, in Novem­ber 1971, National Air­lines unveiled their bla­tantly sex­ist and belit­tling “Fly Me” cam­paign. Derided even at the time as being a bit outré, now it seems, only 42 years later, to belong to another uni­verse, or at least some­thing more dis­tant in time than, say, Down­ton Abbey. Now Cheryl may be the pilot, but frankly, I wouldn’t care whether she was a Wook­iee, so long as she can out­run Impe­r­ial star­ships. Not the local bulk cruis­ers mind you, I’m talk­ing about the big Corel­lian ships now.

The next month, Decem­ber 13, 1971, a lawyer defend­ing Dal­las County Dis­trict Attor­ney Henry Wade (Wade was the respon­dent on behalf of the State of Texas), began glibly with a clunky attempt at wit: “It’s an old joke, but when a man argues against two beau­ti­ful ladies like this, they are going to have the last word.”

Imag­ine the atti­tudes that have changed among the Amer­i­can peo­ple since that world of 1971. Abor­tion, for 20 years after Roe v. Wade, freely avail­able in the US (at least dur­ing the first trimester of a woman’s preg­nancy) was restricted by the same Court in 1992 and by many state leg­is­la­tures. It is now legal in only a few states under severely restricted con­di­tions. Only a few peo­ple could imag­ine equal rights for les­bian, gay, bisex­ual, or trans­gen­der peo­ple, much less imag­ine any or all of those groups in a com­bat role — or serv­ing in Congress.

Mean­while, the Repub­li­can National Com­mit­tee decides to stay the course, accord­ing to Politico:

“On some things, we have the right pol­icy and do a ter­ri­ble job con­vey­ing it. And the Democ­rats have a bad pol­icy and do a great job,” said Mis­sis­sippi Repub­li­can Chair­man Joe Nosef.

“So con­ser­v­a­tives feel like, whether this is right or wrong, that if we’re talk­ing about the issues, that we have a really good chance at win­ning. The thing we can’t do is start talk­ing about crazy stuff… We run peo­ple off… A col­lec­tive num­ber of these peo­ple are tired of doing that.”

“I feel like a pro-​​life posi­tion is a posi­tion that a lot of peo­ple have, but that doesn’t have any­thing to do with crazy talk about rape,” he added.

Politico reports that “with­out objec­tion, the full RNC approved a res­o­lu­tion by voice vote Fri­day call­ing on Con­gress to defund Planned Par­ent­hood and redis­trib­ute the money intended for can­cer screen­ing and pre­ven­tive ser­vices to orga­ni­za­tions that do not per­form abortions.”

Women, once rel­e­gated to be on-​​demand bun­nies for male enter­tain­ment on flights, are now fly­ing not only the com­mer­cial plane but the air sup­port for warfight­ers on the ground. Soon, women will be among those ground troops.

Related arti­cles

• Some com­bat jobs may remain male only, DOD says, but all stan­dards will be reviewed (with poll)
• Allow­ing Women On The Front Lines Could Reduce Sex­ual Assault, Joint Chiefs Chair­man Says
• Mil­i­tary Chiefs Cite Per­sonal Encoun­ters In Lift­ing Women’s Com­bat Ban
• Offi­cial: Pen­ta­gon to Lift Rule Exclud­ing Women From Combat
• Map: Which coun­tries allow women in front-​​line com­bat roles?